ECP students visit CERN

What is the universe made of? How did it start? Physicists at CERN are seeking answers, using some of the world’s most powerful particle accelerators

Last weekend, a group of 17 ECP students from Years 5 and 6 visited CERN near Geneva. Despite heavy snow and Geneva airport being closed for a time, they had a fascinating tour and attended several lectures. ECP students saw the greatest scientific research centre in the world. They heard all about the huge technical challenges of building a particle accelerator 27km long, 100m underground, using 130,000 amps of current and in temperatures near absolute zero, which causes it to shrink by 18m when fully cooled down. The trip gave them an excellent insight into the role of CERN in the key research areas, such as the Higgs Boson, Dark Matter, Dark Energy and in attempts to unify the four forces in the Universe!